mirror
by PURRcrastination
Summary: She'd murdered her family, she killed for a living. Most people would say she didn't have a heart. Sakura knew otherwise. Mokuton!Sakura
1. prologue

**[Prologue]**

There were the mangled bodies, with branches pierced through them, which in a twisted sort of way made it almost seem like they were being embraced by the plants.

There was the fresh crimson blood staining what had once been an immaculately clean white carpet.

There was the smell of death and corpses interlaced into the air.

There had been a family living in the house once, now no traces of them existed except their remains. And there in the middle of it all crouched a trembling girl with wide eyes staring at her pale hands. The hands of a murderer.

An invisible force seemed to constrict the girl's throat making her double over, choking and retching on top of the already stained carpet. Shaking even harder now, the girl wrapped her arms around herself and closed her eyes, wishing that this was all a nightmare that she would wake up from in a moment.

Tentatively she cracked her eyes open only to see that nothing had changed, her parents, her siblings, still lying on the floor dead. And that's when she broke. The coppery and sharply metallic scent of the fresh blood and the sick taste of bile in the back of her mouth flooded her senses, she had to get away. Scrambling backwards on her hands to get up, she turned and ran.

While the streets had seemed so empty and silent before with only a slight breeze rustling past the closed windows and stirring the dust up from doors and sills, now her blood pounded in her ears.

The girl frantically wiped the tears from the corner of her eyes with the back of her hand. She had to get away.

She ran to get away from the place where she had murdered her own blood relatives. She ran to get away from her curse - a curse she had once considered a gift, something that made her unique and special.

She kept running even once the sun had come over the horizon, touching everything and giving warmth to the world. She kept running until she collapsed from exhaustion and closed her eyes, hoping it would all end.

Why was life worth living anyway?

She had no purpose. She was not needed.

* * *

The girl was freezing to death, the cold was penetrating her from the inside out. She had already accepted her fate. She would die, there really was nothing more to it and she'd always wanted to know what awaited her on the other side anyways.

The girl started to cry - no emotion showed on her pale face - she simply let the tears flow because of existence.

Hours later the girl lifted her still damp face skywards. A boy stood above her, his eyes never straying from her's even as he held out a hand towards her.

"Come with me," a hand outstretched towards her small frame.

The girl stared upwards with the first emotion on her face in a long while. Hope.

"My master has need of you." The boy was covered in grime and dirt and looked by no means angelic, but to the girl he was one. Slowly, the girl lifted her arm and placed her delicate and fragile hand in his.

He was a light in her darkness which would pull her out.

He was her Angel.


	2. chapter 1 - land of waves arc part 1

**[Chapter 1]**

It was raining. It always was, the weather never seemed to change in the land of waves. Sakura found herself wondering when they would move to another nation. They'd stayed here for quite a while already, longer than they usually did for sure.

Zabuza had brought them here a few weeks ago, saying that there were plenty of opportunities for jobs which paid well in Wave. Maybe, but the constant feeling of being drenched wasn't worth it. Staring at Haku through her bangs that were uncomfortably plastered to her face from the downpour, Sakura wiped across her forehead with her palm.

"We should have brought our masks," she grumbled to the boy beside her in the trees as she tried to clear her vision. Haku turned to face her, brushing the water off of his own eyes with his slender fingers.

"It's just a bit of water, you'll survive" he said coldly, before looking away from her and towards the clearing they were next to again. Sakura sighed and turned away.

"Of course I will. The target is approaching anyways, I'll move to my position" she stated, already moving through the branches and jumping from tree to tree to cross the clearing. As she reached her position for the ambush, she clenched her eyes shut and let a few tears mingle with the rain pouring down from the dark grey sky.

It hadn't always been like this. She'd made a mistake yesterday, confiding in him about her dream, naively believing that he felt the same way - thinking that she was first in his heart. She'd been wrong.

Feeling out with her chakra, Sakura realised that apart from the five samurai guarding the front, sides, and back of the supply train, there were also ten more men surrounding the different wagons. She narrowed her eyes as she probed further with her chakra, relaxing only when she realized that their chakra levels were no more than those of hired mercenaries or low-level rogue nin.

Moving aside a few branches, the pinkette crossed her fingers and hoped that everything else would go smoothly according to their plan, and that the explosive tags they'd planted earlier hadn't been damaged by the rain.

Minutes later, Sakura tensed in anticipation as the wagons entered the clearing in which her and Haku had prepared the ambush. Silently moving her fingers together, she formed a single hand seal, and as the supply line finally reached the centre of the clearing she uttered a single word.

"Kai." The ground shattered into pieces.

As she waited for the dust to settle down, Sakura smiled bitterly. Explosions made everything better. Pulling her saber from her back, Sakura jumped out of the trees, landing in a roll in the centre of the stunned group.

She methodically swung her blade around, cutting down the guards and relishing in the comfort of a blade in her hands and a blood-stained battlefield. Slice. Jump. Kick. Roll. Stab. Losing herself into the rhythm of the fight, Sakura quietly hummed a tune to herself as she cut down the men who might have had families waiting for them to come back.

Sakura only stopped fighting minutes later when she realised that there was only one opponent left and that she had a gash in her side. Frowning, she turned to face the last guard, realising that he was the one who had cut her when she saw her own life blood on his bulky sword.

Slowly walking towards him, she quickly disarmed him with a flick of her own blade when he clumsily attacked her with his long sword.

"Who do you work for," she asked calmly, taking the time to pull out a handkerchief and wipe her blade clean of blood before placing it under his chin and against his neck. He scrambled backwards on his hands, desperate to get away from the cold metal. Sakura matched him with every step, keeping her saber in the exact same position on his neck.

"You spill, or your blood spills. Your choice," she growled, suddenly getting annoyed at how pathetic this man was. Trembling and wide-eyed, the man nodded, begging for mercy.

"It was Gato! I swear! He offered lots of money! Please let me go!" He cried, still leaning backwards so as not to be cut with the blade.

Sakura scoffed. "Tch. Pathetic. You don't deserve to live anyways." She flicked her blade, neatly separating his head from his neck as his body slumped.

Turning to where she knew Haku was hidden she said sarcastically, "I'm done. Thanks for the help".

He jumped down, not answering and moving towards her. He touched the wound on her side and watched as she flinched, the adrenaline faded away and the pain started to register.

"You were even more reckless than usual," he said, his hand already glowing green with healing chakra as he started to repair the damage. Sakura turned her head away and clenched her teeth, pretending to wipe rain from her eyes as she hid how much his cold words hurt. She knew that he disapproved of her actions and he didn't try to hide it.

Despite being a missing nin and the apprentice to one of the most blood-thirsty criminals in existence, Haku hated killing and killers. And there was no doubt that she was a killer.

Haku stared at her blankly, as if searching for something, before walking away and putting his hands together in the correct sequence of seals for a fire jutsu.

"Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu" he whispered, letting a huge flaming fireball light up the sky as it burned the wagons the now-killed men had been guarding. As the supply train was quickly burned to a crisp from the high heat of the fireball, Haku came to stand beside her.

"Our mission is complete, let's go. We have to report back to Zabuza-sama soon" he ordered, tilting his head to the treeline before taking off.

Sakura sighed, wishing that she could take back her words from the day before so that everything could be all right again, before following. Sometimes she wished life had an undo button.

"_Can I ask you something Haku?" she said quietly, lying down on the grass. Haku nodded and came to lie down next to her. _

_Silently, Sakura took his hand in her's, feeling him tense up momentarily before relaxing again. Closing their eyes, they both lay there for a few minutes before Sakura broke the silence. _

"_Haku?" she quietly asked, opening her eyes and turning her head towards him slightly. The Ice user turned his head towards her as well to show that he was listening. _

"_Have you… Have you ever wanted to just leave? To explore the world like a normal person instead of being a tool for the rest of your life?" _

_Haku tensed. "Saku-" he began before Sakura cut him off, suddenly sitting upright and completely turning to face him. _

"_No. Just listen Haku! I… A while ago I wouldn't even have dreamed of this, Zabuza-sama was the one to give me a purpose in life and I owe him for that… But recently I've been starting to feel like I might be human again! Like… Like maybe I could be without a purpose in life as long as I'm with you!" she said, grabbing onto his other hand as well and looking into his warm brown eyes. _

_Haku looked back into her emerald eyes before sighing and removing one of his hands from her grip to run it shakily through his long hair. "Sakura… I can't - we can't talk about this. What would we do if Zabuza-sama finds out? We're supposed to be tools, and tools don't have emotions. Your words are bordering on betrayal, please don't continue so i don't have to report you." _

_Sakura clenched her eyes shut before opening them again and molding her face into a blank mask. "I know. It's fine, I just wanted to know if you felt the same. We should go now, Zabuza-sama is here waiting to give us our next mission anyways" she said blankly, standing up gracefully and walking away. _

_A pained expression crossed Haku's face before he too, stood up and followed after his pink-haired companion._

Sakura clenched her hand into a fist at the memories, feeling a bit of blood spring up from her nails digging into her palm. Using the pain as a focal point, Sakura shook her head to clear her thoughts before increasing her pace slightly to catch up to Haku.

She glanced around at her surroundings as she pointedly refused to meet Haku's gaze. They'd been running non-stop for about an hour now, and the trees were slowly dwindling to water and more familiar surroundings, which signified that they had almost returned to their temporary base.

As Sakura ran beside Haku on top of the sea they had to cross to get to Wave Country, she gathered up her courage to talk to the silent ice wielder. Clearing her face of emotions, she turned to meet his eyes which were still silently looking at her.

"Haku, can we just forget I said anything yesterday?" she asked tentatively, hoping he wouldn't just ignore her as he had been doing all this trip. Haku broke his gaze, looking away from her eyes and speeding up again.

Sakura sighed, maybe she shouldn't have brought it up. Increasing her speed again so that she was slightly in front of Haku now, she reached the clearing in Wave where they had temporarily set up and was about to enter it when all of a sudden Haku grabbed her arm, spinning her around to face him.

Examining her face, he waited a moment before nodding curtly. "It's forgotten" he said softly, entering the clearing ahead of her.

Sakura closed her eyes and smiled softly, happy that Haku was back, before following him into the clearing where Zabuza was waiting for them.

As soon as they were facing him, Sakura's smile dropped from her face.

"Report" the man ordered coldly, turning away from them and gesturing with a hand for Haku to speak.

"We arrived at the mission location on time and received the money in advance" he stated, moving forward to drop a small bag of coins into Zabuza's hand. "We set up explosive seals in the ground and waited hidden in the trees surrounding the ambush clearing. Once the supply train arrived, we set off the seals and jumped out to kill the survivors. During the attack, Sakura received a deep wound on her side which-" here Haku was cut off by Zabuza turning around to face them.

"I don't care about your injuries or deaths" he said gruffly, narrowing his eyes at Sakura. "Train more so it doesn't happen again" he ordered before gesturing at her to continue the report.

Sakura nodded stiffly, clenching her hands behind her back so that she wouldn't say anything out of line. "There was one survivor who I quickly interrogated to receive the information that he had been hired by Gato for a large amount of money. After that, I decapitated him and Haku used a fire jutsu to incinerate the train as requested by the contractor before we headed back here immediately," she said cooly, deciding not to mention that Haku hadn't fought at all like he said in his report.

Zabuza examined them for a few more minutes before turning around again and heading off. He stopped at the edge of the clearing. "I will look at this Gato person the man talked about. Get some rest, we move out at dawn" he ordered without stopping.

Sakura turned to Haku, "I won't mention the fact that you didn't kill anyone," she said softly, grabbing his hand, hoping he wouldn't pull away now that he had agreed to forget the events of the night before.

"Thank you" he replied simply, not removing his hand from hers but also not making any effort to hold it back. Sakura gave him a pained smile, it wasn't much but at least they were moving forward again.


End file.
